"You will go to Brome to-morrow, as usual," he said. "The Whiggish old dotard, I could pluck out his inwards! And you will say not one word of Mr. Ferguson! For, mark me, sirrah Dick, alone or in company I shall be at your elbow, nor will all Cutts's guards avail to save you! Do you mark me? Then d---- you, down on your knees! Down on your knees, you white-livered dog, and swear by the Gospels you will tell no living soul by tongue or pen that you have seen me." He pressed the cold steel muzzle to my temple and I knelt and swore. When it was done, he roared and jeered at me. "You see, I have my oath!" he cried, "as well as Little Hooknose! And no non-jurors! Now say 'Down with King William!'" I said it. "Louder! Louder!" he cried. I could only comply. [Illustration: HE PRESSED THE RING OF COLD STEEL] "Now, write it! Write it!" he continued, thrusting a piece of paper under my nose, and slapping his huge hand upon it. "I'll have it in black and white! Or write this--ha! ha! that will be better. Are you ready? Write, 'I hereby abjure my allegiance to Prince William.'" "No," I said faintly, laying down the pen which I had taken up at his bidding. "I will not write it." "You _will_ write it!" he answered in a terrible tone. "And within a very few seconds. Write it at once, sirrah! 'I hereby abjure my allegiance to Prince William!'" I wrote it with a shaking hand, after a glance at the pistol muzzle. "And swear that I regard King James as my lawful sovereign. And I undertake to obey the rules of the St. Germain's Club, and to forward its interests. Good! Now sign it." I did so. "Date it," cried the tyrant; and when I had done so he snatched the paper from me and flourished it in the air, "There is my passport!" quoth he, with an exultant laugh. "When I am taken that will be taken, and when that is taken the worse for Mr. Richard Price if he is taken. He will taste of the hangman's lash. So! You are a clever fellow, Richard Price, but Robert Ferguson is your master, as he has been better men's!" The man was so much in love with cruelty, that even when he had gained his point he could not bear to give up the pleasure of torturing me; and for half an hour he continued to flout and jeer at me, sometimes picturing my fate if the paper fell into the Secretary's hands, and sometimes threatening me with his pistol, and making sport of my alarm. At last, reluctantly, and after many warnings of what would happen to me if I informed, he took himself off; and I heard him go into the opposite rooms, and slam the door.